


What's Come Undone

by aswellingstorm



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, idk im tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 21:16:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11563488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aswellingstorm/pseuds/aswellingstorm
Summary: Written from ideas submitted @ bughead-fanfic-wishlist.comswanscapitan asked:I have this theory that Archie's feelings are going to slowly arise and when they finally come to the surface everyone's gonna be all mad and prissy ( especially bughead ) and Veronica is gonna be heartbroken and feel all abandoned and Archie will have no friends . And then that's when he and Cheryl start getting closer . ( in a totally platonic way ) and maybe they then develope a sturdy friendshipanonymous asked:jealous Archie, who tries to ask out betty and she is confused because everyone knows she is dating jughead & Jughead hears the convo and starts to act distant but betty tells him she love him?.Summary: Set somewhere in season two, Archie’s feelings for Betty reach a boiling point during lunch one day. As a result, both Veronica and Jughead run off to lick their wounds with Betty scrambling to make things right. Kevin is equal parts intrigued by the drama and disgusted with Archie, leaving the ginger with none other than Cheryl to lean on.





	What's Come Undone

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re a writer looking for inspiration or you have any ideas you’d like to see written out, please go check out bughead-fanfic-wishlist.tumblr.com! it’s a really cool site and has some amazing prompts waiting to be filled!!

Betty isn’t quite sure what situation should be priority one at the present moment, but there are some strong contenders.

First, she has Archie Andrews staring at her with hopeful puppy dog eyes and a stupid smile on his face; blissfully unaware of all of the chaos he just caused.

It was like any other Tuesday, and the gang had been enjoying lunch together in the school’s courtyard. It felt like the mayhem in their lives was finally dying down- Fred was making a speedy recovery, police had serious leads on who the shooter was, Polly had just successfully given birth to twins and with FP out of jail, Jughead was permanently attending Riverdale.

The blonde was just beginning to count her blessings while listening to Kevin and Veronica rant about the latest wax figure of Beyoncé-a total disaster, allegedly. There had never been a state of normalcy for the friends, the moment Veronica moved into town is when Riverdale began to descend into the depths of total mayhem. Betty figured that this moment for them was going to be as normal as it ever possibly could.

Of course she had spoken too soon, she was too busy enjoying the warmth of Jughead’s arm around her to notice Archie staring at her intensely.

“It’s like they _literally_ changed her race!” Kevin complained about the wax rendition of the icon.

“Exactly!” Veronica agreed readily, “And where did her lips go?”

“Betty!” Archie blurted out, heart thumping wildly in his chest. His palms were sweating and he _knew_ it was a stupid idea but if he didn’t say something now, he felt like his heart would burst.

Surprised, all eyes snapped to him, even Cheryl shifted her attention away from the nails she was delicately filing.

“What is it, Arch?” She asked, round eyes looking at him with genuine concern.

“I…you-I need-we- we should date,” He finally managed to get out. The entire table gasped at him, mouths hanging open in shock. Archie didn’t miss the way Betty instinctively grabbed Jughead’s hand for support, but continued on to say, “Look Betty, I know I messed up after homecoming. I thought…I thought I didn’t have any feelings for you because I was so messed up with the whole Grundy situation but…the more time passes the more I realize that it’s _you_ Betty. It’s only ever been _you_. You’re the _only_ one for me.”

Now, with him staring at her like she held his future in the palm of her hands, she didn’t know _what_ to do.

Her second problem now was the immediate look of heartbreak and pain that was etched across Veronica’s face. She was equally as stunned as Betty but, unlike the blonde, she knew what her next course of action was. She nestled her purse into the crook of her arm, grabbed her lunch tray and promptly emptied her bottle of water on Archie’s head. 

“You _ass_ ,” She spat out, single tears threatening to fall from her eyes, before she ran inside the building.

Thirdly, while Veronicas reaction didn’t really surprise Betty, Jughead’s did. He slowly removed his arm from around her shoulders and coughed awkwardly. He shifted his beanie and straightened his jacket before saying, “I, uh, I have to go. _Forever_. Bye.”

Finally, in the process of his admittance, Betty had spit her own water out of her mouth, falling lamely onto her lap. It was cold and wildly uncomfortable, but she had more pressing matters to attend to.

Her anger took over, deciding that she needed to deal with Archie first. “How dare you?” Her voice was shrill, painful to her own ears, “I mean, how could you do that to Jughead? He’s your _best_ friend, Archie! And just to clarify: no. Never. No. Just-no, Archie. A thousand times over-no.”

“Betty, come on-”

“No, Archie! And what about Veronica? Don’t you see what you just did to her?” Betty asked, astonished and gesturing to where her best friend had just retreated.

“Yeah, and what about me?” Kevin interjected, “You didn’t even let me know you were going to drop a bomb like that! I could’ve live tweeted it—” 

“Shut the hell up, Kevin,” Betty commanded fiercely enough for Kevin to get goosebumps, “I…I can’t believe you Archie. What were you thinking?”

His shoulders fell at her rejection, “I just…we keep missing each other Betty. You liked me and I wasn’t ready for it, and now that I have feelings for you, you have a boyfriend! When are we just going to skip the cycle and get back to us?”

“Us?” She asked, “Archie, there _is_ no us. There will never _be_ an us. How I felt about you back then…it wasn’t real. I was in love with the idea of you, but all of that changed.”

“Because of Jughead?” He wondered bitterly.

She answered him truthfully, “No. Because I realized what I deserve and what _I’m_ worth, Archie. Jughead helped me do that. He’s never made me feel _bad_ for being ‘too good’ and he’s been there for me more than you have in the past year.”

“At least think about it!” He pleaded when Betty began to get up and gather her things. She only shook her head at him as she walked away, deeming him unworthy of a verbal response.

\--

Comforting Veronica was easy, over the months it had become like a second nature to Betty, but today it was even easier. She was just as furious as Veronica and, after feeling a similar rebuke from Archie nearly a year ago, she could share V’s pain. Veronica wasn’t a fool, she knew how strongly Betty felt for Jughead and was highly aware of the fact that she had done nothing to lead Archie on. Whatever feelings Archie was experiencing was a manifestation of his own idiocy.

They ended their bathroom chat with a vow to have a comfort movie marathon, complete with Ben and Jerry’s, on Friday night at Veronica’s house and spent all of Saturday searching for the perfect revenge fuck for her.

While Betty was still confused and hurt by what Archie had done, she was filled primarily with anger. He disrespected her, his friendship with Jughead _and_ her relationship with Jughead. He didn’t care about her feelings and assumed she’d jump in his arms at his declaration.

It was incredibly insulting for him to think that she’d spent all of this time waiting on him to finally decide he wanted to be with her. Anxiously, she scanned the hallways to look for her boyfriend but kept coming up empty.

When the bell for sixth period rang, she found him sulking to their free period class.

“Hey!” She called out running up to him. He began to walk faster, leading her to take bigger strides so she could keep up with him. Betty wanted to reach out and grab his hand, but it was angrily stuffed into the pocket of his jean jacket and he wouldn’t look at her.

“That was, uh, pretty crazy?” She questioned both nervously and awkwardly.

“Wild,” he deadpanned as he opened the door to the library and Betty was certain if she hadn’t reached out to grab the door from behind him, it would’ve closed right after he entered.

Quickly he signed in, scribbling his name on the attendance sheet on the circulation desk. She tried to keep up with him and write her name even quicker but when she looked up, he had already disappeared. She looked to the librarian to ask, and the kind, elderly lady merely pointed to the row of computers behind the stacks of books on the east side of the library.

Jughead had taken the last available seat in the row, sandwiched between other students trying to get their work down. Betty knew he was trying to freeze her out, make it impossible for her to talk to him or ignore her until she went away, but Betty Cooper doesn’t give up _so_ easily. She had come far too close to having a romantic future with _Archie_ to just let the only boy she ever had true feelings for try to push her away. Loudly, she dragged a chair from one of the tables over to sit directly behind him, earning nasty looks from everyone except for Jughead.

He wouldn’t break his stare from his computer screen, aimlessly checking his emails. 

“Your email better be pretty important if it’s worth blatantly ignoring me, Jug,” She sighed, “Hope the entire town isn’t on fire.”

“I’m busy,” he mumbled, despite the fact that she could very well see that he wasn’t.

“You can either turn around right now and _talk_ to me-” she was about to threaten him with a more difficult option when he actually turned to talk to her.

His eyes were red and tired and he sounded emotionally spent when he said, “Do we _really_ need to have this talk now? Here?”

Other students were beginning to stare at the couple, so Betty stood up and more or less dragged Jughead up as well. Awkwardly, they moved to the other isolated corner of the library and earned strange stares the entire way.

She leaned against the table so her body was facing him, remaining unsurprised when he turned away from her again.

“I just…I can’t believe him,” She sighed.

“Save it,” he muttered, looking at a row of books, “This is exactly what you wanted.”

“Excuse me?” She clenched her jaw, narrowed her eyes and could feel her fingernails digging into the skin of her forearms. 

“Really Betty? Come on,” He turned his head towards her to look at her disparagingly. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been dreaming of the moment where Archie Andrews finally admitted he loves you back.”

“I haven’t been,” She argued, “I don’t want him-Jughead. I never _really_ did, and being with you helped me see that all I wanted…was _my_ idealistic version of him.”

Betty moved to stand in front of him, gently placing her hands on his arms and trying to catch his gaze, “And I don’t care if he _likes_ me like that or-or wants to date me.”

“Really?” He said, raising a brow and looking at her.  
“Really,” she affirmed, “I don’t care if he loves me either, because I don’t love him,” briefly she paused, not fully sure what she was about to say before the worlds easily came out of her mouth, “I love _you_ , Jughead Jones.”

She blushed as she admitted it, feeling vulnerable until she saw the indescribable look of pure happiness that graced Jughead’s features. His eyes lit up and she saw him begin to smile before he pulled her into a deep, knee-weakening kiss.

They only pulled away from each other when they heard the librarian clear her throat, and when they did, he swept his fingers through his hair, removing the beanie.

She didn’t have to plead with him to look at her or face her when his hands gently brushed the sides of her face and with a happy sigh, he admitted, “Betty Cooper, I love you.”

\-- 

At the end of the school day, Archie was standing out by the front of the school. He was looking for Betty, hoping she’d come up to him and tell him he had been right about it all.

“If you’re looking for Goldilocks,” Cheryl’s voice came from behind him, “Try over _there_.” She enunciated the word by pointing her finger across the parking lot, to where a bench had been perfectly placed underneath an enormous oak tree.

Betty was sitting there, looking down at Jughead who was resting his head in her lap, one leg propped up and the other lying flat across the bench. Even from where he was standing, Archie could see the wide smiles on their faces, eyes scrunching up from laughter as she ran her fingers through his hair.

He suddenly felt very guilty as the blonde reached down to kiss her boyfriend on the forehead, he felt as though he were stepping in on a private moment. His heart sank as he realized she wasn’t getting up anytime soon, and he resigned to leave her be.

“What’s the matter? Just now coming to the conclusion that you two can’t ride off into the perfect suburbia sunset and live happily ever after?” Cheryl asked dryly with a fake pout.

“Whatever Cheryl,” he sighed at last tearing his eyes away from the couple, “At least I tried.”

 "Why did you?” She asked bluntly, “Try, I mean. Now you’re stuck _here_. Veronica won’t look at you for at least three months, Kevin, under complete B &V jurisdiction as always, won’t want to be seen with you either. And Jughead…he might just accept it, because you’ve never been that great of a friend to him, have you?”

He shook his head, knowing that maybe a few months ago Cheryl would’ve been right. Jughead would’ve just let Archie slide, not wanting to lose his friend. But now, dating Betty had made him stronger and Archie knew that the other boy wouldn’t tolerate his shitty behavior anymore.

“I _had_ to,” He explained dumbly, “I felt like…if I didn’t, if I just let it go and never told her I would have regretted it my entire life.”

“That’s an incredibly selfish thing to do,” She pointed out.

“I know,” he admitted about to leave when she walked in front of him.

“Well, let’s go,” she flipped her hair to one side, combing it gently with her fingers.

“What? Where are we going?” He was confused, but followed her regardless.

“You’re buying me coffee,” Cheryl stated leaving room for questions. Without looking behind her or falling out of pace, she effortlessly threw her keys behind her for Archie to scramble to catch. “Us narcissists have to stick together."


End file.
